Lost Souls Made Whole
by Servant of Elizabeth
Summary: A collection of oneshots based on characters from the Soul Calibur universe. After the rise and fall of the Hero King Algol's tower, souls affected by the clash of the Soul Swords find themselves adapting to the new age of peace, however short it may be.
1. A Smile That Doesn't Hurt

_Alright, this is intended to be a series of oneshots based on the perspective of my favorite characters from the Soul Calibur series. I tend to like the less popular characters, and if you dislike them, please refrain from flaming. Anyhow, this first chapter was done in a rush, so I'll edit it later, but I am somewhat proud of it. She's one of my favorite characters, and I really enjoyed her ending in Story Mode. Anyhow, enjoy! _

**Chapter One**

**A Smile That Doesn't Hurt  
**

_They're so pretty…_

Blood-red eyes blinked quizzically as the girl looked out at the world. Flowers stretching from the horizon to the ground far below her turned the world into a field of rainbow petals. She had never seen anything like it before, or maybe it just was that she had never taken the time to look for something like it before. She wondered when she had changed; a small smile coming to her lips at the thought of it.

_The first time I smiled, it hurt a little._

_--_

_For so long she'd frowned, emotions locking in place while her mind puzzled over her situation in life. As the years ticked by, she'd lost the small, childish face she'd been born with, and instead stared out at the world behind a mask of confusion. It had only grown more and more confusing as the ages passed and the world developed new complexities. Small wars became big ones, and in time, the small girl had learned that there was a world bigger than the small island she called home. It wasn't a friendly place._

_Back then, there weren't any flowers…just fire…_

_Fire and smoke and steel and all sorts of things that stung her eyes and bit her skin; when the men had come to take her away like they had to her brothers and sisters, she'd swatted them away like insects. Where twisted steel failed them they turned to magic; shackling her and tossing her into the darkness like some animal, spitting and snarling curses in ancient tongues. As far as she knew, she hadn't done anything wrong. The world had been on fire before she got there; father killing son at a moment's notice – she just wanted to play along too._

"_You are a monster," they told her, "and monsters must never be loose in this world." When she had screamed her responses, yanking at the chains that bound her to the very lowest level of the pit, the shaman had simply clapped a talisman over her mouth and left her there with nothing but her thoughts and the worried questions of her friends._

_But then, after many years and many keepers of the pit that was their prison, the children looked up at the moon one night, confusion written across their faces. The chains that had bound them to the stone walls had turned to dust and the talismans lining the pit had burned to ash. With playful spirit dancing in their eyes they'd spilled forth from the pit, ripping the chains and boards that made up floor and walls._

"_What are you waiting for?" the smallest of them had asked her, and she had found herself biting her lip and avoiding the little girl's eyes. True, she wanted to leave just as badly as her friends, but some part of her heart ached horribly at the thought of it. For whatever reason, she wanted to be 'good' in whatever sense of the word she had been aware of, and with a hesitant goodbye, she sat back down against the wall. This time, she truly was alone, a flicker of anger shooting through her heart each time she felt one of her brethren's lives being snuffed out._

_Centuries later, she would look up at the moon, rising to her feet and staring curiously at the gaping mouth of the pit. She couldn't feel her friends any longer, and nobody had come to inspect the lone girl in quite some time…did this mean that she was free? For the first time in ages she rose to her feet, her bones cracking loudly from years of disuse. The girl crouched low to the ground, small fingers wrapping around a crude hunk of wood all the others had deemed inferior, and with speed born naturally of her, she shot back upright, flying into the air and out of the pit in one bound. Landing skillfully, the girl looked around, eyes widening slightly at the world around her. To say that the world had changed would be an understatement. Casting her thoughts away from the world for a moment, she let her eyes travel to the length of wood clutched in her hand. Stepping forward, she heaved the club forward, splitting what had once been a fortress wall in one shot. _

_She smiled, feeling her lower lip crack and bleed from the unfamiliar gesture, but she paid it no heed. She could feel it – beyond the washed walls of this society that had sprung up around her, something powerful was building, something like the wars back when she and her kind had run free. There were other friends out there…plenty of new friends to be made._

_--_

Smiling, the young girl stepped back from the balcony and turned to her room. Her lips had long-since gotten used to her smile and her face was no longer a mask of confusion for the world around her. Her sandals sat neatly by the door while she padded lightly across a small sea of animal-skins that served as her carpet. Gently grasping the ornate handle, she pulled the titanic door open, brushing a hand affectionately against the club resting at its place beside the door.

She didn't need it. For now, the fight had left this world.

A small shiver raced through her as she walked down the frigid halls, flitting and winding through the labyrinthine network of corridors. The small girl couldn't help but tug the nightgown around tighter around herself; she was still getting used to the cold. As the halls changed from obsidian to marble, she couldn't help but wish that she had remembered her slippers.

The hallway opened into an enormous chamber that glittered in an array of black and gold, and girl had grown comfortable enough here to roll her eyes at the choice of décor. Along the center of the room lay a long, red carpet and the girl smirked, walking along it and grinning at the overblown regality of it all. That was just the way he was, however, and hopping up one final staircase, she looked up.

In his throne, the mountain of a man who had once been the world's only king sat pouring over a tome. With a slight grunt, the man lifted his head, looking up at the girl before a slight rumble sounded in his chest. Without so much as a warning he leaned forward and picked the girl off the ground and sat her on his knee. She returned the look, grinning at the frown that raced across his features.

"It's cold." He rumbled, shrugging the cloak from his shoulders and wrapping the child in it several times over until only her head was sticking out from the enormous mass of fur and silk.

The girl giggled and leered. "I can handle it." she spoke even as she squirmed deeper into the cloak. The man grumbled and raised his eyebrow disapprovingly at the comment, patting her on the head with one massive hand as she stuck her tongue out at him.

"You know she's right," came a cheerful voice as a young man strode into the room. The girl rolled her eyes again; he was nice, but his dress fit the throne room's theme of utterly ridiculous. The prince grinned, "She _did _thrash you pretty well, Father."

At this, she couldn't help but laugh. Peals of loud, wolfish laughter sounded from the small girl's mouth before the man dunked her head into the mass of the cloak. Anyone else would have gotten the better side of the man's fist, but if it was her or the Prince, this was about as bad as it got.

"Now, now." said the young man, reaching into the cloak and pulling the small girl out before setting her back on the furs, "She's the princess, be nice."

Kamikirimusi, Daughter of Algol and brother of Arcturius. It sounded ridiculous, but as she fell back against the man's chest and felt one arm wrap around her, she couldn't help but smile. She finally had what she'd always wanted; a family just for her.

_Author's Notes – I found her to be a surprisingly deep character, although I should have expected as much from the creator of Mai-HiME, and I honestly loved the fairy-tale ending she got at the end of her story. Please, leave some reviews and comments! _


	2. To Have A Heart

_Thank you very much for the positive feedback for Chapter One. Since I adore Kamikirimusi, it's very likely that she'll be featured again later. Anyhow, here is another oneshot for who I believe to be a very underappreciated character. _

**Chapter Two**

**To Have A Heart  
**

_I want it…_

The ivory-skinned girl slapped aside the thrust of the soldier's lance with but a flick of her wrist before bringing her own weapon down in an overhead swing. With a sickening crunch, the titanic mace sent up a spray of gore and mangled armor as it cratered the earth. A loud clang sounded as another one of the archers' bolts rebounded off of her neck, and throwing her weight backwards, she wrenched the weapon from the ground and set it at her side.

"I've come for it." she stated in her monotone voice as she stared blankly into the hateful eyes of the battered legion and was met with two dozen smoldering glares. Then like a pack of beasts, the soldiers roared and charged once more against her. The girl tightened her grip about the mace's shaft and wound up for a swing: there was no mercy, no discretion, and certainly no possibility for there to be any less blood spilled tonight, but she didn't care. She had come her for it, and she would have it.

_It should be mine…_

The soldiers flew aside like paper dolls as she spun and swung and danced through the courtyard of the dilapidated fortress. More came streaming out, all bearing that same crest upon their shields, but it didn't matter to her. She had come here in search of _it, _and she could all but feel it between her fingers as she inched closer and closer to heart of the fortress. A sudden jolt caught her attention as a shield was brought down over the back of her head, and automatically, she swung her hand towards the attacker, tossing him aside with ease.

_I'll take it if I need to…_

"Give…it…to me…" she murmured, heaving her mace in a wide arc and catching nearly half the company in the swing. A fresh wave of cries greeted her ears as lives were quickly cut short by the mace's colossal swing. Lunging forward, a fresh cry greeted the ranks of the dead as her fist ripped through the armor with ease. A broadsword left a long mark along her arm, tearing the frilled sleeve and leaving a deep scratch.

Instantly, her eyes were upon the perpetrator, and through his visor, she could see that the man – hardly the type who looked to scare easily – was frozen with fear. She didn't so much as wince as her eyes flickered over the mark on her arm, but the tension in the air grew thicker and as heady as a choking blood mist as her gaze traced the ruined pattern of frills. It was a personal affront to her, and the man's unspoken apologies were wasted when the hilt of the mace was rammed soundly through his stomach, skewering him like a pig on a spittle. She turned and neatly threw the man from her weapon with a single swing so that his blood wouldn't dribble down the shaft and further ruin her dress.

With a motion faster than she seemed to be able to accomplish, the girl dashed forward, whipping her weapon around her and carving a bloody path to the doors of the fortress inner sanctum and smashing through them as if they had been of rice paper. Inside, the dim light cast weak shafts of rusty light across the room, failing to bring any sense of life to the hollow chamber. Figures dressed in cloaks hissed and recoiled at her arrival and flocked behind the throne, all looking to the figure seated there – their immortal God of Destruction – for leadership.

It started as a long, low rumble, but quickly grew until it was a booming laugh as the hulking figure rose to its feet, two hideous embers gazing down at the girl – two hellish flames meeting a wall of bleached steel and porcelain eyes. She had not heard that laughter in a long time. With it came the rush of what few memories she had.

"Ashlotte…so _good _to see you..!"

_--_

_She could remember when she'd completed her mission and felled the monstrous Astaroth. Battered and beaten, she had barely been able to stand, let alone heft her mace from where it had gotten lodged in the tower wall. With a sigh of exhaustion uncharacteristic to her, she allowed herself to fall backwards, eyelids shut before her back hit the ground._

_Hours later she had awakened to find herself half-buried in rubble as the tower shook dangerously. Shoving the slabs of stone off from on top of her, the mechanical girl rose from her spot on the floor. Far above her, she could hear the sounds of battle, but as her eyes flickered across the room, they came to rest on the fallen form of the golem of Ares. Immediately, her sense of duty took over, and with some minor difficulty, she began the ardor of dragging her weapon, Astaroth, and the monster's axe back to her masters as proof of her victory. _

_It had always been her simple duty to complete her mission; there was no reward, no benefit, only a binding contract of servitude to her masters to which she would loyally follow until the end of time. Her congratulations were short-lived, and upon completion, she was permitted a rest until she was next needed. Thus began her slumber. Deep in the caverns where the cult's temple had once held a beautiful shrine was now little more than a dilapidated slab of rock amid a pool of fetid water. Still, she chose this place, and laying her mace on the ground, the girl laid against the cool stone, closing her eyes until her services would be of use once again._

_Later…much later, her eyes would flutter awake as if in the midst of a beautiful dream. Slowly she sat up, surveying the room around her. Whatever had happened here..? Where there was once only a stone in dirty water was a beautiful garden of flowers amid a crystalline river. The walls of the cave were beautiful as well, and reflected the light of the fireflies dancing through the air. Tilting her head for only a moment, she disregarded the scene of pristine beauty, and grasped her mace where flowers and vines ripe with berries had wrapped around it, and started forward, dragging her mace down the familiar path through the temple she had traveled so long ago._

_It would be as she slowly walked, that she found parts of the temple collapsed from age and decay, but she wouldn't stop until finally, against the wall of what had once been the entrance hall, she found two mangled corpses. Her brow flickered; she knew why she had reawakened. The axe-wounds on the bodies of her former masters couldn't have been made by any human. With the same grim mission as before, the girl set out across the world._

_But it had been as she found herself huddled against a rock as the blizzard lashed against the mountain that she began to ask herself what it was that she was doing. It had been the will of her masters to track down and exterminate Astaroth. Disregarding however the demon had come back to life…what would she do once he was dead? Without a mission, was she simply meant to return to her eternal slumber..?_

_She…didn't want that._

_So…_

_What was it that she wanted..?_

_--_

"Astaroth." She replied, gazing at the golem sitting upon his throne. In the time since their supposedly eternal slumber, the golem had risen, and around him, the remnants of the ancient cult had rallied. Now they found themselves where this entire dance of blades had begun; two abominations of science and alchemy staring each other down. Their individual capacity for violence and murder were matched only by that of the person standing across the room from them.

The giant grinned his hellish grin and plucked his axe from where it had lay propped against his throne and growled idle threats she chose to ignore. Ashlotte's grip on her mace tightened as she lowered herself into the familiar stance she assumed for one-on-one combat. Looking at the monster she had once killed, the girl found herself overcome with the strange emotions she had struggled with ever since her reanimation; anticipation running through her hollow joints like passionate fire. Her eyes fell on the massive heart beating unnaturally against Astaoth's chest, and her ivory lips turned upwards in a devilish smirk.

She wanted it, she desired it, she _needed_ to have it…and luckily enough, if she couldn't have it, he wasn't about to let her live to regret it.

"I am the one who deserves humanity; not a puppet like you. Give me your _heart, _Astaroth," She spoke coldly, and with nothing but hatred and the cold steel of the mace in her hand, she threw herself at him; mace whistling an executioner's song in the air.

_Author's Notes – This was inspired by some writing I've done in the past coupled with some questions I had after Ashlotte's ending. The two most addressed in this story were what would have happened after the two priests died and there was nobody to give her orders, and the second was that if Astaroth were to return, as he often seems to, would she be there to stop him. Ashlotte ties with Kamikirimusi for how endearing I found a character to be, and I consciously made an effort to make her fighting style seem slightly different than Astaroth's._


	3. It's Okay To Cry

_While the reviews have been few, they are very encouraging, and for that, I thank you. Ashlotte always struck me as a character who received an unfair lot in life and I was curious as to what she would do if she was in control of her own future. Next is a character that, while more respected and known that the other two, is rarely recognized as a significant main character._

**Chapter Three**

**It's Okay To Cry**

It was a good thing that she had never wished to be a princess in a castle, for she would have been sorely disappointed. Growing up in such a miserable world, it was no small wonder that she had never really learned how to smile properly. Twelve years of loneliness and five more years of worry had turned her face into the placid mask of calm she needed to keep the world at bay; keep the maids from asking if she was alright and keep her "father" from taking a moonlit vigil to make sure she slept alright. She _never _slept alright.

Staring at the ceiling while the rain lashed at the windows and the wind howled through the lower floors of the castle, she couldn't help but let out a long, slow sigh. He had at least given her the shattered fragments of a life she would otherwise never have had; she might as well try to piece them together. She didn't know where to start though…it was so much easier just to go with what she knew; the reassuring peace and quiet of _nothingness. _To be nothing – to be his shadow – made life so much easier.

Therein was part of the problem however, and the girl slowly sat up. Immediately her eyes were greeted by the symbols of his opulence. Golden mirrors and stacks of stuffed animals and glass dolls from every last toymaker in Europe lay on top of carved mahogany and ash and sat in front of tapestries and panther skins. To her right was the door to a washroom made entirely of marble and silver, and to her left was a closet full of lace and frills that was nearly twice as large as the washroom, and it all made her depressed.

Slipping silently from between the bedcovers, the small girl tightened the nightgown around her slender frame and donned her slippers, padding softly from her room. Out in the hall, Jacqueline bowed hastily and shuffled away as if frightened by some specter. She couldn't blame the poor maid: her father always yelling at her for the smallest things – usually not her fault either.

After several long minutes of wandering the halls, it suddenly occurred to the young girl that she had no idea where she was going, and her feet came to a halt. She hated nighttime around the castle; when everyone had gone to bed was the only time her legs felt like carrying her from her room, whether or not she liked it. Slowly, her legs began to move again. Her eyes drifted shut as she tried to listen for someone – anyone – doing something of interest, but instead the low rumbling of thunder in the distance only added to the misery that tonight was turning out to be.

By the time she found herself climbing the stairs of the tallest tower in the castle, the rain had begun to lash against the walls as the wind moaned and whistled through cracks in the halls. At the end of the staircase was a single wooden door: heavy and padlocked and unusable, as her father had said. The only real reason it was still intact was because he was a perfectionist, and wouldn't permit anyone to take an axe or a hammer to it. As such, nobody knew that the key was hidden in a torch-hold next to the door, and the tower was never visited any more – that's why it was her favorite room in the castle.

Up in here, from the small chair pushed up by the window, she could look out over the castle grounds and see all the way past the village and to the mountains in the distance – enhanced vision being the only positive result of the poison in her body. The view she had grown to love was now blurry and blotted out in shadows as the storm boomed its unquestionable arrival. In the blink of the eyes the clouds let loose a torrent of gray rain, and Amy nearly groaned in exasperation: the whole world was miserable tonight, it seemed.

"I have…no right to be upset…" she murmured, glaring at her reflection as if it were the most disgusting thing in the world. It looked like a mask; two eyes behind a shell that glared out at the world from up in the security of its castle.

_A mask…_

That made her remember the laughing man.

--

_When her father had left on what would be his third journey across the world and beyond in search of that wicked blade, he had taken Jacqueline and her sister and left her in the castle with but a few hapless bodyguards. Discontent with being treated ever the child – she had saved him once already – she couldn't bear to allow him to rush to whatever death laid waiting at the end of a stranger's sword. Most children think their parents to be invincible, but she wasn't as simple as that. If anyone should understand how valuable life was…it was her._

_So she had taken the rapier Albion from where it had lay upon the ornaments of her room, and with only a few gold coins, she'd flitted from the castle without a single notice. The French countryside seemed to fly by as she ran, stopping only to sleep for a few hours in the branches of a tree or, if there were few people, an inn. Soon the signs alongside the roads turned to English, then again to German. The grass turn from the beautiful greens of French soil to tough brush as the salty air of England fell over the land, but the second she set foot on German soil, the entire country had been consumed by the poison of Ostrheinsburg, as the grass had become grey and withered._

"_You look troubled lass. C'mere and we'll have a nice chat 'bout what ails you." _

_The thin drawl had come from a wiry man; handsome in many respects, but his eyes flitting so subtly over her frame had her wary. Wordlessly, she shook her head, continuing her way down the dingy road to the cursed city, trampled flat by the hundreds of people who had fled in the past wake of the catastrophe. _

_He smiled, "Oh come on lass; you never know what sort of people are waiting for the stragglers along old roads like these. We've got a fire you can warm yourself by." He continued, reaching for her arm. Wrong move. She could see the calluses along his hand and the splinters from the crude weapons common to brigands. The way his fine clothes moved with him indicated a leather plate of armor below his clothing, and there was that grin of his._

_With a movement faster than the eye could register, she drew Albion, and in a flicker of light, made a single stroke. A flicker of pain shot up the man's arm, and his eyes widened in disbelief as he let loose a loud howl, clutching the bloody stump where his hand had been. Roaring savagely, he screamed for help, and drew a long, jagged knife from his side, swinging wildly. His unrefined style was hindered by the loss of his sword arm, and she couldn't help but smirk when he fell before even one of his comrades had come to his aid._

_They arrived though, and they came in droves. From the sheer number of them, they must have been camping nearby to rob those who had fled the city as they'd come down this road. Her brow furrowed as she settled into the familiar pose of the rapier duelist, and began to cut them down one by one, pirouetting and dancing like a ballerina through snarls and haphazard swings of sword and axe._

_Suddenly, a maniacal cackling rang across the battlefield, and suddenly she felt a rush of air come barreling past her, immediately accompanied by the choking cry of another man being cut down. Regaining her balance and then her composure, she readied herself for this odd intruder's blow, but it never came. Rather, the man seemed to disappear, reappearing by two men, cutting them down in one stroke before disappearing again. This time he was behind her, and nearly startled the small girl out of her skin. Up close, he was more monster than man, and she took a step back, bracing herself for an attack. It never came, however, and a bandit who had been crawling along the ground and had made it within a meter of the girl while she had been distracted found himself skewered on the jagged blade before kicked aside by the newcomer. _

_By now, their ranks had thinned; five bandits dead and the rest fleeing from this unnatural opponent who was screaming and laughed as he knocked them dead. The largest and proudest of them however, an enormous, muscled man hardened from years fighting in a coliseum, hefted his axe high and charged, shouting and roaring as his heavy footstep sounded like a stampeding bull._

"_Osh, Osh, Osh, KYOOOOOH!" he shouted, stepping forward and shooting an arm out. With a loud thud, the man's fist sank into the raging man's stomach, and as if hit by a lead weight, he heaved over, groaning before sinking to the ground._

"_Young lady, you have been rescued from your distress, courtesy of-"_

_The man was cut off halfway through his elaborate bow before he found Albion against his throat, or rather, where the mask ended and the odd wood plating on his neck began. The man looked down, meeting her cold gaze, and though there was no hole for eyes or mouth, she could tell the man was grinning behind his mask._

"_-Yoshimitsu: the Bandit King! May I ask the name of this deathly pale girl whose thanks be the blade at the neck of this humble ronin?" he asked, the laugher in his voice making no effort to disguise itself. _

_Her brow furrowed again. "Amy." She stated, tightening her grip on Albion's hilt, "…and you call yourself the King of Bandits. Why shouldn't I finish you now?" she managed to ask, stumbling slightly around the words. She was used to much shorter sentences._

"_KeKeKe!" laughed the man loudly, "You have too little understanding of my work! I am Yoshimitsu, head of the Manjitou; virtuous bandits who save those in need, and relieve the coffers of the greedy and gluttonous!"_

_Amy couldn't help but roll her eyes at this. "I think that's already a book." She spoke flatly. The man cackled at this._

"_Oh, pretty, witty, flitty little Amy, you wound me!" Yoshimitsu cried, dissolving into laughter before standing upright, unperturbed at how she raised the rapier with him. "You journey to Ostrheinsburg – such a bold quest for such a diminutive sapling. Mayhap you travel for someone whose tracks already litter this weary road?"_

_For a moment, she puzzled over what he had said before working through his loud, odd manner of speech. "Yes. I follow someone." The man nodded, looking her over in whatever way he managed with the mask covering his face, and thrust his sword into the ground, sitting on the hilt with one leg folded as Amy scrambled to move her rapier away before it stabbed into his neck. The man grinned – again – and with a sigh, she lowered the blade; they both knew she wasn't going to kill him._

"_You of white skin carry a spirit twisted black." He spoke, nodding animatedly as he did, "If you seek the fair-haired man with a soul like yours, he has taken to the rivers yon there." He spoke, extending an arm that creaked horribly and pointing to a river in the distance._

"_Thank you." She said simply, and turned to leave, but the man rose, and in a flash, was in front of her, wagging a finger._

"_Remember young Amy! For which that a person is, that is all they are, because a mask is in the image of the thought, not of the person. He is he, but you are you." He stood up proudly, pleased with his own riddle, "…and of course, I am Yoshimitsu!"_

…_and in another cackling flash, the man drew his sword and threw himself into the air, flying in a manner that even a madman would balk at. Far below however, Amy stood lost in thought, thinking for the first time _

_Raphael…was Raphael_

_She was Amy…_

_She couldn't walk his path._

--

So in the end, she had never claimed Soul Edge and brought it home like she had initially intended. If all she wanted was a home, she wouldn't allow Raphael to present to her the world on a platter. With pleading, she'd convinced the wounded man to return home with her before he ran himself to death, and – swearing and spitting blood – he resigned himself to lean on her small shoulders, and limp along the long road home.

Everything had returned to the way it used to be…so…

"Why…do I want to cry?" she asked the girl reflected in the glass. They both knew the answer. She wanted Raphael to be happy, but she wanted him to be safe. So long as he chased Soul Edge…the two would never coexist.

…and as much as she wanted to say it was rain on the window, both she and her reflection were crying.


	4. In Search of a Story

**Chapter Four**

**In Search of a Story**

"My name is Angol Fear, and I have come here to pass judgment."

The man with the wooden mask looked at the girl with what she could only assume to be bemusement, and for the ninth time in as many minutes she contemplated simply killing him so that she could inspect exactly how he had bonded the wooden puppetry to himself so intricately.

No, that would not do – he was interesting.

She had come here to fight; to track down the proponents of this power that scarred the universe like a cancer, radiating ever outwards and threatening to drag the rest of existence into its cycle. Such calamities were not unheard of, and if those who had created her were correct in their worries, then her intervention was a merciful alternative to what could have befallen this backwater civilization. She had slain many on her way here; to this cliff overlooking the site of a great battle. She had watched the woman in the armor of silver wolves fight with sword, banner, and mailed fist against her own men; soldiers corrupted by the poison of the evil sword.

The wooden man tilted his head questioningly, and she realized that she had been smiling faintly at the memory.

"You humans are…amusing." She finally spoke. The man's rattling laughter washed over her senses once more, but the being called Angol Fear blinked unassumingly and awaited his explanation. She wanted to know more about this man; who was so different than anyone else, but still one of them – a _human_. Was that accurate? What were the defining characteristics of a human being? She looked at him again, her creaseless brow furrowing in thought; an alien process that was less the recollection of memories and more the analysis of a fragmented record of colors and monotonous voices reminding her of things she had never seen.

He was floating.

That was what had prompted her to lay down her weapon; the heavy staff of lunar metal she had claimed for herself after a hard-fought battle on a distant world. The beast had snapped her legs and gouged her eye; she had deemed it only just that once she had pulverized its spine in more manners than even the Greater Being would have conceived, that nobody would miss a single tooth, and had carved it into the likeness of her home.

But back to the man; the floating man of wood and laughter, Angol reminded herself, driving the memories away. She had become interested in him because he floated, legs folded beneath him as if his meditation had carried him off of the ground. Sitting across from him in the little crevice on the mountain where she had found him waiting out the blizzard, she had done the same. Yet while she floated with the simple manipulations of gravity, body mass, and magnetic fields, he simply _floated_.

"Amusing, the girl of frozen skin says!" The man howled, "Yet to our eyes, she is the poetry and humor; rhyme and misunderstanding!"

Angol remained expressionless, working out the man's lyrical manner of speaking slowly. This only prompted more laughter, and Angol glanced at him, feeling some foreign emotion beginning to contest her interest and propose once again that she simply reduce the man to wooden pulp on the canyon floor.

"Tell humble Yoshimitsu, girl from beyond the stars, what practice have you as judge and…executioner, yes? These carved eyes have laid upon so many children these days with weapons taller than myself – carved from twice as much lumber, no less."

"What practice?" She echoed, and began to recount the stories of her travels – or rather, the single long story of her life. She told him of the creature whose teeth had torn her legs and removed her from temple to jaw, and whose tooth she had taken as a prize; of the woman whose skin was made of light and who wore armor simply out of tradition, and of the battle that had lasted for seven days before she had been able to cast her down into the core of a ruined city, beyond the light of the two suns, and whose armor she now wore as a badge of pride. She spoke of the men who wielded sound like lances and tamed it like a warbeast, or the man whose presence alone had scorched the ground within a hundred meters of wherever he stood. She had killed them all, as per her instructions, and never looked back.

What use were memories? Only humans would get sentimental over information irrelevant to the whole of the world.

The man was laughing again, and Angol would have frowned had the gesture been something she knew how to manage. Fear was the only emotion she understood – it was her namesake, after all – it was the primary motivator behind all of natural biological history. Fear was the only variable created by life.

So why then, was the man unafraid of her exploits?

True, the warriors of this world were mighty on the battlefield, and had demonstrated ability far beyond what she would have initially believed capable from a denizen of this backwater spit of rock floating in the irrelevant sector of space. A girl whose life was protected by the air itself and a man who had been killed by a servant of a raging god and had returned to life as cocksure as before; surely the wooden man before her possessed some great skill if these were the enemies he had fought, but still – she was Angol Fear – she had slain champions of entire worlds.

That was why he was laughing.

"Answer the ronin just one further question, porcelain-skinned judge. Did once you visit this world before, hundreds of our years ago, to a place of sand and stone, and happen upon a ragged soul who asked the name of the girl from the stars?" Yoshimitsu cackled, and Angol could practically see the grin on the man's face, wider than even the twisted comedy of his mask. She thought back, matching the picture his words painted to one in particular, and nodded stiffly. Figuring the length of time these people called "a year" and matching it to her memories, then yes, this was a world she had been forced to descend to after the beast had nearly claimed her life; it was here that she forged her weapon, and here that she had first learned of "humans."

"Yes." She said, nodding once more.

"Eyahahahahaaa!" Yoshimitsu howled, nearly falling out of the air as he convulsed with laughter, "Charming Angol, your tale is the truest comedy, and this ronin hopes that many more will hear of this irony than just himself – an audience is so much more acceptable if it is larger."

"I do not understand." She replied blankly, awaiting his explanation. The ronin chuckled and shook his head, leaning forward as if speaking to a small child, though the laughter never left his voice.

"Listen well, child of so many years – all life is the truest story, and for lack of a narrator, it is up to us to read what is comedy, what is tragedy, and what is trash. A hundred thousand stories appear each morning; why not read and be entertained?" He cackled, and this time, Angol very nearly frowned – he was speaking in riddles once more, and this one she had not understood. The man was one step ahead of her once again, though, and smiled sympathetically behind the mask as he unfolded his legs and rose to stand.

"Angol Fear, hear my words, " Yoshimitsu said as she leapt to her feet and hefted her weapon from where it had leaned against the side of their small cave, "I have heard your stories and of your life; yet I do not see any of it as your writing, nor your path as your choosing. Should you ever need aid, the Bandit King Yoshimitsu will be glad to led you his humble service." His voice had changed, as had his voice, and Angol could swear that for the first time, he had sounded _human_.

"Wait!" She said, raising her voice for the first time in her life, and found herself reaching out with one hand. The man stopped and looked over his shoulder expectantly, and the girl searched herself for the right sounds – the words accurate to the scenery and characters in place, but found no presets.

"Why was my story so humorous?" She managed, uncertain if it was what she had meant to ask. Yoshimitsu chucked, and for the first time since she had arrived on this planet, she was startled by the change that overtook the man. He was hunched slightly and the wooden eyes looked dead; his voice was tired and sympathetic, and the musical rhyming had fled him.

"I am afraid that they misheard your name, girl from beyond the stars – you see, when that man wrote his story of the girl who fell from the sky and promised judgment and destruction…" He paused, chuckling a raspy, tired laugh, and raised a hand to brush back his hair, and for a split second, Angol knew that his eyes were boring into her.

"…he called you _Angel_."

And the man of wood and riddles howled with the most terrible laughter she had ever heard in her life, and disappeared in a flash of smoke and powder, out into the whirling blizzard, leaving Angol Fear with only he thoughts. Like the blizzard, the war for the soul swords came and went, and left Angol at the end with nothing but her duties – as always, there was nothing else.

So she slung her weapon over her back and began to walk, alone with her questions and her history of nothingness as she searched for the storyteller with the wooden mask.

* * *

_Author's Note: Alright, so I have finally returned from an extended leave, and I felt like writing a chapter for Angol Fear who, despite her art style not fitting within the game, I found to be a very under-developed character that I would have liked to hear more from. Anyhow, read and review if you like; I would appreciate it, and to those of you who enjoyed these stories so far, I hope that this was worth the wait. I have a few more plans that I will try to write when I can find the time, but for now I'd like to hear some feedback. Additionally, these stories might actually begin to tie together at some point, I have not quite worked with the idea at length, so we shall see!_


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